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Official Journal of the European Union
EN
C series
C/2024/3661

26.6.2024

Resolution of the European Committee of the Regions on a renewed cohesion policy post 2027 that leaves no one behind. Responses of the CoR on the Report of the High-Level Group on the future of cohesion policy and on the 9th Cohesion report C/2024/3661

THE EUROPEAN COMMITTEE OF THE REGIONS CoR,
HAVING REGARD TO:

the Report of the Group of high-level specialists on the future of cohesion policy hereafter HLG report;

the Ninth report on economic, social and territorial cohesion hereafter 9th Cohesion report;

its opinion of 29 November 2023 on The future of Cohesion policy post 2027;

the upcoming debate on a strategic agenda of the European Union;

1. welcomes the HLG report and the 9th Cohesion report as robust contribution to the debate on the future of cohesion policy;
2. recalls that economic, social and territorial cohesion is a fundamental objective of the EU proclaimed in Article 3 of the Treaty on European Union TEU and that Article 174 of the Treaty on the Functioning of European Union TFEU
translates this objective by providing for place-based policies reducing disparities between various European regions in the spirit of subsidiarity and solidarity;
3. highlights the outstanding added value of cohesion policy in contributing to this objective by supporting strategic investments and fostering convergence between regions, including the outermost regions defined in Article 349 TFUE and, rural areas and other areas defined in Article 174 TFEU 1;
4. calls for cohesion policy post-2027 to include a regional orientation at EU level and a specific allocation of funds for regions with territories referred to in Article 174, and for the aid intensity to reach a minimum threshold in association agreements. Possibly this should also include other EU budget policies with a territorial dimension, including any successor to Next Generation EU;
5. considers that a comprehensive budgetary response to the demographic challenge is needed, with additional funding, in a cross-cutting manner across all relevant Union programmes and policies, in particular in all the Structural Funds, in order to better address the social, economic and territorial gap suffered by the European regions affected by depopulation.
Encourages the study of the possibility of using territorial classifications more adapted to the problem of depopulation existing in each of the territories, be it NUTS level 3 or, below it, local administrative units in some cases adjacent to them;
6. underlines that this success is based on the core principles that have underpinned cohesion policy since its inception: the shared-management model on a sub-national level together with the principles of additionality, solidarity among Union territories, of partnership and multi-level governance, and its support to place-based solutions;
7. insists that cohesion policy is paramount to ensure the sustainability of the European Single Market, to translate the European Unions competitiveness agenda in all European territories, to overcome national barriers hampering the Single Market and to mitigate unintended territorial consequences of its development;
1 Art 174 TFEU states that particular attention shall be paid to rural areas, areas affected by industrial transition, and regions which suffer from severe and permanent natural or demographic handicaps such as the northernmost regions with very low population density and island, cross-border and mountain regions.

ELI: http data.europa.eu/eli/C/2024/3661/oj
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